[ODFW-News] Roosevelt elk hunting opportunities look good on north coast access area

[ODFW News]

For Immediate Release  Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2005

Roosevelt elk hunting opportunities look good on north coast access area
 
TILLAMOOK - Hunters pursuing elk during the upcoming Coast Bull Elk
Centerfire seasons can expect to find good opportunities for success on
the North Coast Access Area. Those seasons run Nov. 12 - Nov. 15 and
Nov. 19 - Nov. 25  
 
Formed in the late 1990s, the North Coast Access Area keeps
approximately 1.5 million acres of timberlands owned by Hampton
Affiliates, Longview Fibre Corporation, Hancock Resource Management,
Stimson Lumber Company, Weyerhaeuser, Inc. and the Oregon Department of
Forestry open to public hunting access in Clatsop, Columbia, Washington,
Tillamook and Yamhill counties.
 
Funding to cooperatively manage the area comes, in part, from grants
awarded by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife's Access and
Habitat Program. Earlier this year, the A&H Program provided a $577,680
grant to pay five retired Oregon State Police troopers to patrol the
area during hunting seasons over the next five years.
 
The A&H Program is funded by a $2 surcharge on hunting licenses. Funds
raised by the program are distributed through grants to individual and
corporate landowners, conservation organizations and others for
cooperative wildlife habitat improvement and hunter access projects
throughout the state.
 
"The North Coast Access Area has good elk numbers, and pretty good bull
ratios," said ODFW Assistant District Wildlife Biologist Dave Nuzum, who
oversees elk management on the coastal portions of Wildlife Management
Units (WMUs) that lie within the North Coast Access Area.
 
Postseason (winter 2005) bull elk ratios on the Trask WMU were about 10
bulls per 100 cows, 19 bulls per 100 cows on the Wilson WMU, about 18
per 100 on the Saddle Mountain WMU but dropped to 8 bulls per 100 cows
in the Scappoose WMU. 
 
Those ratios indicate that there are plenty of legal bulls to be
harvested on the North Coast Access Area. 
 
Nuzum suggests that hunters should glass clear-cuts in the early morning
and scout the area they intend to hunt to get an idea of the habits of
the local elk herds.
 
He also noted that hunters can expect to encounter active logging
operations on Tillamook State Forest property and private industrial
forestland, which creates good elk and deer habitat.
 
"Elk are scattered over the area," said Nuzum. "There are herds in just
about every drainage. It's a matter of locating a herd and figuring out
where they go when they start moving."
 
For more information about hunting the coastal portions of the North
Coast Access Area contact the ODFW North Coast Watershed District Office
at (503) 842-2741. For more information about hunting the valley
portions of the North Coast Access Area, contact the ODFW North
Willamette Watershed District Office at (503) 621-3488. Information on
the A&H Program can be obtained from program coordinator Nick Myatt,
503-947-6087 or on ODFW's Web site at www.dfw.state.or.us/AH/.
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